The Confluence of History and Poetry: A Reading of Masayuki Usuda's Nationalism and Spirituality in Modern Bengal

• 田辺 明生

Bibliographic Information

Other Title

• <書評論文>〈史〉と〈詩〉のあわい : 臼田雅之著『近代ベンガルにおけるナショナリズムと聖性』を読んで

Abstract

Masayuki Usuda's Nationalism and Spirituality in Modern Bengal makes us aware of the profound potentiality of historiography that lies in between the human sciences and literature. The book renews and enriches our understanding of nationalism in modern India from the viewpoint of literature and spirituality. It indeed announces a new start of "cultural history". Usuda systematically explains the historical development of culture and religion in modern Bengal and, at the same time, articulates a sensitivity to the poetics of history that goes beyond the serial logic of cause and effect. The book reveals an extraordinary balance as an acute critical stance on history is sustained while an intricate zeitgeist - the spirit of the time — is expressed through the unfolding of a poetics of the historical moment. It is truly "cultural" in the sense that it gives us an insight into the author's awareness of the "virtual" within the "actual", even as he retains the sense of critique based on otherness within the self. He achieves this by placing himself in the intermediate zone between "empathy and comparison" and "affection and analysis". In this remarkable book, Usuda displays the possibility of achieving such a feat through his mature and deep understanding of the relationship between history and poetics.

Journal

• 現代インド研究 = Contemporary India

  現代インド研究 = Contemporary India 5 167-196, 2015-02-27

  人間文化研究機構地域研究推進事業「現代インド地域研究」

Keywords

• 360

Details

• CRID: 1390572174797083136
• NII Article ID: 120005844227
• NII Book ID: AA12520400
• ISSN: 21859833
• DOI: 10.14989/216637
• HANDLE: 2433/216637
• Text Lang: ja
• Data Source:
  • JaLC
  • IRDB
  • CiNii Articles
  • KAKEN